


can really only ever be one

by buhnebeest



Category: Star Trek
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, First Kiss, Friends to Lovers, M/M, New Year's Eve
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-07
Updated: 2014-02-07
Packaged: 2018-01-11 12:33:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,628
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1173120
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/buhnebeest/pseuds/buhnebeest
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Maybe that’s why he signed up for Starfleet. Enforced professionalism.</p>
            </blockquote>





	can really only ever be one

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted December 7th 2010 [at my journal.](http://buhnebeest.livejournal.com/3603.html#cutid1)
> 
> This fic was written for the prompt _first kiss on New Year’s._

**Ten.**  
  
It should not come as a surprise to Leonard, and it doesn’t on some highly ironic level, but on the more immediate situational level it’s really fucking shocking.  
  
Jim pulls away, grinning, eyes very blue and hands still very much on Leonard’s cheeks, and he yells a drunken “Happy New Year’s, Bones!” over the pushy thump thump of the hellish noise the club is trying to pass off as music. Then he promptly turns and brandishes the same treatment on Gaila.  
  
Leonard stares, dumbstruck, at Jim as he kisses Gaila, a lot more passionately than the kiss he pressed to Leonard’s lips not ten seconds ago, and feels his heart lurch in a way that it hasn’t in quite a while. His lips are tingling.  
  
“Fuck.”  
  
 **Nine**.  
  
When Leonard first met Jim, he was inwardly cursing liquid courage for being unhelpful as balls, while desperately trying to explain the madness that is flying around in this lifeless contraption to anyone who would listen. So far, nobody has ever shared his perfectly reasonable reluctance to board anything that goes higher than a foot off the ground, but Leonard lives with the silent hope that someday humanity will regain its intelligence and ban space travel forever.  
  
“I really think you should reconsider your career choice, man.” Jim Kirk told him. He was grinning by now, which made the cut on his lip stretch. Leonard’s inner doctor scowled, while Leonard’s outer doctor grabbed a tricorder from his bag and started scanning the kid’s face. He bore it remarkably well for someone who most likely thought he was being scrutinized by a dangerously unstable person.  
  
“Yeah, well, you and me both, kid.” He sighed. “Not much choice to reconsider.”  
  
Jim pursed his lips then, thoughtful. “I’m sure you could’ve been a doctor in Europe or something. You can go there by boat, no flying necessary.”  
  
Leonard pretended to be concentrated on the tricorder readings then, unable to keep a little frown from forming between his eyebrows.  
  
“Your face is fine, just some surface damage,” he said, not very subtly changing the subject, “I can get you a hypo for the pain.”  
  
Jim was looking at him, curious and serious, though he winced slightly at the mention of hypos.  
  
“Ugh. I hate those things. I can bear a couple of bruises, Bones.”  
  
Leonard raised his eyebrow questioningly.  
  
“’All I got left is mah _bownes_.’” Jim quoted obnoxiously, tiny little smirk playing on his mouth, like sharing a joke. The cut on his lip stretched again.  
  
 **Eight.**  
  
Because Leonard is too old to have a crush he simply decides he doesn’t have one, which works until Jim stumbles into their dorm on January the 3rd, dressed in a leftover Santa hat from last week and not much else, though to Jim’s credit he’s at least trying to cover himself up with an empty pizza box.  
  
The pizza box gets discarded the moment after the door closes behind him, though, so Leonard feels like taking the credit back and also he should go back to what he was doing, which was glaring at the ceiling and not having a crush on Jim, as opposed to staring at a naked Jim whilst having a crush on him.   
  
“Morning.” Jim says cheerfully, taking off his hat and faceplanting on his bed with a delighted moan. Leonard closes his eyes and silently curses life in general and his own life in particular.  
  
“Jim, where are your clothes?” he asks long-sufferingly. He wonders why he even asks the moment after the last consonants leave his mouth, because the answer is going to contain the overall theme of ‘glorious sex with people other than you’, and Leonard is really not in the mood to hear about it, even less so than usual, though for entirely different reasons than before.  
  
Jim sighs happily, “Gaila,” which is all explanation needed, frankly. Leonard’s glad Jim doesn’t elaborate.  
 ****  
Seven.  
  
Jim likes flirting; he loves doling out attention. He enjoys how girls swoon and boys melt, how women smile indulgently and men smirk hungrily: likes discovering how to impress the numerous variety of aliens that catches his eye.  
  
Leonard doesn’t want him to ever stop it: apart from Jim oozing charm without even trying, Leonard has always sort of liked watching him turn up the heat, in a strangely fascinated kind of way. He never gets why people like Jim so much: to Leonard, on the surface, at least, Jim comes off as an arrogant goofball. He’s Leonard’s best friend just because he knows Jim isn’t like that at all.  
  
Jim’s never ever come on to Leonard, which only goes to show that first impressions stick.  
  
 **Six.**  
  
As time passes, Leonard gets quite impressed with his own prowess at self-denial.  
  
He’s uncomfortably aware of Jim, which is not all that different from before, but now he wants to do… things.  In the morning when he wakes up before Jim he wants to card his hand through the ridiculous mess that is Jim’s hair. He wants to get on Jim’s bed, pull the sheets away and look at him, and kiss him awake, and touch him, everywhere.  
  
Leonard starts trading his morning shifts at the campus emergency room for late nights so he doesn’t have to wake up for them. He has adopted avoidance as the best policy.  
  
And it is, for about two months, until Jim ambushes him on a Sunday evening with quite the unfairly heart-stopping grin, determined.  
  
“Turn that smile upside down, Jim, I’m not in the mood.”  
  
Jim’s grin widens contradictorily as he takes Leonard’s PADD and replaces it with a vintage bottle of Jack.  
  
“Firstly, that’s not quite how that phrase goes. Secondly, I haven’t seen you in forever and feel neglected.” He jumps up and down a little, like a child. “Pay attention to me!”  
 ****  
Five.  
  
Jocelyn and he were coworkers first, then friends, which had stopped the moment Leonard had started his campaign of getting her to date him. She was perfect for him: smart, beautiful, and not in the least bit cowed by Leonard’s at times admittedly hostile demeanor.  
  
That Leonard was slightly old-fashioned was a secret to exactly nobody at the hospital: that his Southern Gentleman act would win her over eventually was even less of a secret. The problem was the act part of that, Leonard thinks, or maybe, in hindsight, how their entire relationship became a contest of stubbornness.  
  
He thinks that by the time they got married Jocelyn could hardly stand him, subconsciously at least, if her kicking him in her sleep was anything to go by.  
  
Maybe that’s why he signed up for Starfleet. Enforced professionalism.  
  
 **Four!**  
  
If anyone’s stubborn it’s Jim, which is how Leonard spends one memorable night supervising Jim’s alcohol binge after the failure of the Kobayashi Maru, Second Try.  
  
“Bones,” Jim mumbles woozily, into his neck, breath hot and sweet with old liquor, “Can you imagine it, Bones?”  
  
At this point, Leonard has long since abandoned the notion he’s merely crushing on Jim and has gone straight for doomed unrequited love. He runs his fingers through Jim’s thick hair and asks softly ‘what?’  
  
Jim’s words are so quiet Leonard has to wait for the crumpled sound of his voice to register as words.  
  
“Ever heard the Kelvin recordings?”  
  
Leonard has.  
  
“Imagine that.” Jim’s hands are iron fists, clenching tightly around the ratty white material of Leonard’s T-shirt.  
 ****  
Three!  
  
Leonard doesn’t hold any illusions about the symbolism in Jim clutching at him. Not that unrequited, then.  
 __ ****  
Two!  
  
Much like many other enlightening conversations he has with Jim, this one happens when they’re drunk.  
  
“She told me to take a hike across the moon.” Leonard frowns, “I only just thought of that.”  
  
“Aw, Bones, you guys really knew where to strike, huh?”  
  
Jim is grinning, happy and not at all serious, but Leonard is on a roll now, can’t stop.  
  
“She was my friend first, a good friend, we bonded over the horror that is hospital paperwork. I fucked that right up, Jim, I’m a terrible lover. Can’t separate romance from feelings, that’s another thing she said. Whatever the fuck that means.”  
  
He looks back at Jim, who is now only staring at him thoughtfully. Fucking mouth twisted in a tiny little smile.  
  
“I… when you kissed me-”  
  
Jim’s eyebrows shoot up.  
  
“-at New Year’s. Last year, that is.”  
  
Leonard feels a ramble coming and valiantly tries to diverge his word vomit into a much more dignified rant. No suck luck.  
  
“There’s no need to look so surprised, Jim, it’s not like it’s much of a stretch for you. Anyway, I wasn’t gonna do that again, fuck up a perfectly good friendship, like with Joss, but fuck Jim, it was never like this with her.” He stares at Jim’s slack-jawed mouth longingly, “Just, I thought I could handle it, but it’s basically all I can think about. I just… love you, kid. A lot.”  
  
 _ **ONE!**_  
  
Maybe carrying this around for this long was a bit overdramatic.  
  
It certainly didn’t help, because now he’s speechless with rage at his own stupidity, because this is Jim, _Jim_ , who is…  
  
“Bones, c’mon. Let me-”  
  
…kissing him, pressing him down against his bed, where the rumpled sheets bunch in the small of his back. His legs spread automatically for Jim to settle against him, as close as possible, and Jim obligingly takes all the space available with barely restrained eagerness. Jim’s hands are running over Leonard’s chest, pulling at his shirt, impatient, while Leonard is trying to vanish Jim’s zipper with the power of will alone.   
  
Jim pulls back then suddenly, panting wildly and his pupils dark and wide. He says, “I think our friendship is pretty secure, Bones.” and takes off his shirt.  
  



End file.
